In my Pastor's Page for Christmas Day I spoke about the horrendous
situation facing Christians in the Middle East, particularly in
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Egypt. May I share with you here an
article from the December 24-25 issue of the Wall Street Journal that brings the
situation home not through statistics but through the presentation of
some individual case histories of Egyptian Coptic Christians who have
sought asylum in the United States. The report brings to mind once
again Emma Lazarus' famous EPIGRAPH for the Statue of Liberty.

Kirolos Andraws had every reason to be excited about the January
uprising in his native Egypt, figuring democracy would bring hope for
young people like him.

Then one day in February, says Mr. Andraws, a gang of thugs beat him and told him, "you
deserve to die." His offense, he says: refusing to convert to Islam.

In late March, Mr. Andraws, a 23-year-old engineer, used a tourist visa
to board an Egyptair flight for New York City. He let a room in a
friend's apartment, hired an immigration lawyer and applied for asylum.
He has survived mainly on wages and tips from jobs as a cook, cashier,
and delivery man.

"I have no other option," says Mr.
Andraws, who found refuge at a Queens church that's becoming a way
station for Copts arriving in New York.

Mr. Andraws is one of thousands
of Coptic Christians - followers of an ancient form of
Christianity with its own language and rituals - who have come to the U.S. to escape rising
persecution in Egypt.

For decades Copts have
suffered attacks by Islamists who view them as "kafir" - Arabic for
nonbelievers. But there is now
a sense among Middle East experts that they have become more vulnerable since the revolution.

This year, mobs have looted and
attacked Coptic churches, homes and shops throughout Egypt. Churches
have been burned down, and one Copt had his ear cut off by a Muslim
cleric invoking Islamic law.

Strong gains by Islamist parties
in the recent elections have further raised fears among the
Christian minority that they won't have a place in the new Egypt.
[The Muslim Brotherhood received 40 percent of the votes in the recent
parliamentary elections, and their fanatical "cousins," the Sataftsts,
received 25 percent, all in all, nearly a two thirds majority for the
anti -Christian parties].

The plight of the nation's roughly eight million Copts poses a quandary
for the U.S. The pivotal Middle East
ally receives $1.3 billion annually in military aid, and the
administration has riled some critics who say it has failed to strongly
rebuke the transitional rulers amid recent violence against women,
Copts and other minorities.

The U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom, a federal advisory agency,
asked the State Department to place Egypt
on its list of "countries of particular
concern" - egregious violators
of religious freedoms. The department declined, saying that its goal is
to work with the Egyptian government to improve conditions for
Christians.

Kathleen Fitzpatrick, a deputy assistant secretary of state, says her
department has been "very concerned with the attacks on the Copts in
Egypt in recent months," and has shared
its concerns with "the highest levels of the Egyptian
government."

Mark Hatfield, a senior vice
president at HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, argues that
any failure to safeguard the Copts in their homeland could be perilous,
opening an immigration floodgate if Christians conclude that there is
no hope for them in the new Egypt.

Some members of Congress want
the administration to take a stronger stand. Rep. Chris Smith,
(R., N.J.), a senior member of the House of Foreign Affairs Committee
who chairs its human rights subcommittee, notes that in years past America has helped Soviet
Jews and Christians from South Asia make new lives in America. He
argues that the U.S. should do the same for the Copts. "The
Copts are the canaries in the coal mine - they are the barometer of
Egypt - and the canary is gasping," he says.

For Copts with the means and determination to head to the U.S., their
first stop is often at the door of a welcoming church.

Mr. Andraws, for one, made his
way to the St. Mary and St. Antonios church in Ridgewood, Queens.
Father Michael Sorial, a priest there, says that between March and
October of 2011, his congregation has received hundreds of new
parishioners - all recent arrivals from Egypt. By contrast in that same
period in 2010, the church had only 75 new Egyptian worshippers.

"A lot of Copts aren't able to
live in their own land anymore," laments Father Luke Awad of the
St. George Coptic Orthodox Church in Brooklyn. A tall man with a jet
black beard, he says they are "coming
out of desperation." Coptic clerics in other regions, including Jersey
City, N.J., and Los Angeles, say they are also seeing an influx.

St. George, built in the 1970s, is located in a staid working-class
neighborhood near Bensonhurst. Waves of immigrants have come here over
the years - from Italians and Chinese seeking a better life, to
Russians escaping the former Soviet Union.

For Coptic Christians, churches
and pastors like Father Luke can make the transition smoother.
His cramped office has become part food pantry, part pharmacy, part
toy-store, part social-work clinic. A pharmacist by training, he keeps
a bag stuffed with over-the-counter medicines such as Advil and cough
syrup - even orthopedic socks for men. To a new arrival, even a
toothbrush is expensive, the priest explains.

"A lot of families, if they were
in the middle class, they have become way, way poorer," says Father
Luke. "Some are well off but the majority has needs."

The Christmas season is especially challenging for those whose
relatives remain back in Egypt. St. George is planning a special
holiday dinner where broken families can meet and unite as well as
receive gifts for children, says Father Luke.

Sherien Mehany El Gawly, 39, and her family arrived in Brooklyn in
July. Her two daughters, aged 11 and 12, had "a very nice life in
Egypt" thanks to her husband's textile business, she says. But after
the revolution, their affluent station didn't seem to matter much.

One day, while shopping at an
Egyptian grocery store, a man singled her out and hurled curse words at
her. "I am not veiled and he told me, 'We want to clean our country of you,"'
recalls Mrs. El Gawly. Christian women are easily identifiable
because they don't cover their hair.

The family's regular house of
worship no longer felt safe. Her daughters were frightened when the
church appeared on an on-line list of bombing targets.

The final blow came last summer, soon after a doctor examining her
12-year-old daughter for a fever asked if she had been "chitan" - the
Arabic term for removal of the clitoris and other female sexual organs.

"He said, 'I can do it for them now - it is very easy and it is free,"'
Mrs. El Gawly said. "I said, 'No, no, no.' Then I ran out of the
hospital."

The brutal procedure was banned
under the Mubarak regime and declared illegal. But as Islamists gained
sway earlier this year, it was one of the Mubarak era reforms they
derided and wanted to strike down. The practice is in danger of making
a complete comeback, say some observers at the World Health
Organization.

"Thank God we are far away," says Mrs. El Gawly.

Lately, her husband Maher Shehata has worked as a delivery man and a
cashier; the girls attend public school. The four rent a modest
apartment on the top floor of a three-family house in Bensonhurst,
paying $1,600 a month. Although the rent is a strain, the family hopes
to gain surer economic footing as their application for asylum snakes
through the system.

As a balm, Mrs. El Gawly has promised her daughters new dresses for the
holidays - just as they always received in Cairo.

On a recent outing to Manhattan,
the sisters reveled in dazzling sights like the Christmas tree at
Rockefeller Center and elaborately decorated department store windows.
It was a stark contrast to the subdued atmosphere Coptic Christians are
accustomed to in Egypt.

For all their excitement, the girls still feel sad. Last week, the
older daughter, Miriam, phoned her grandfather in Cairo who told her he
missed her and wasn't expecting many visitors for Christmas. After the
call, the little girl kept crying, according to her mother.

For some Copts, Brooklyn is only a way station on a circuitous journey.

Dalya Attiatalla, age 36, along with her husband and brother,
originally found refuge at Father Luke's Church after arriving in New
York in September. She went to St. George's several times a week to
pray, and attended Bible classes at night.

In Egypt, Ms. Attiatalla had dreamed of opening an arts and crafts
center, where she would teach children to paint. But her business
angered Muslim neighbors in the building who pressured them to remove a
cross and other Christian images.

Ultimately, they ran afoul of authorities who said they didn't have the
proper license. Finally, they say,
police came one day and destroyed the center using hammers and other
objects.

Now she and her husband are in the U.S. trying to start anew. Recently,
they left their small apartment in Brooklyn - it had sparse furniture
infested with bedbugs - and headed for Dallas, where they have
relatives. Ms. Attiatalla isn't without regrets. If she and her husband
apply for asylum, she won't be able to return to Egypt, where she left
behind a frail and sick father.

"We looked to Egypt as a holy land," she says. "It is very hard to
leave your country."

Human rights groups in Egypt
have estimated that as many as 100,000 Copts have left Egypt since the
Revolution. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service reports that
asylum claims by Egyptian nationals more than doubled this year
- to 835 in the fiscal year 2011 ended in September, up from 403 in
2010. Many more enter the U. S. on tourist visas and never make a
formal appeal to stay.

Meanwhile, of as many as 1.4
million Christians in Iraq, hundreds of thousands have fled Iraq since
the fall of Saddam Hussein. The U.S. has given refugee status to
thousands.

The asylum process can take
months or even years. Applicants must demonstrate a
well-founded fear of persecution should they return to Egypt. After
filling out an eight-page application, they are interviewed by an
asylum officer. If their application
is rejected, they must either leave America at once or retain a lawyer
to appeal.

Immigration lawyer David Barnett
says most of his New York-based practice is now focused on Coptic
Christians. Mr. Barnett is an observant Jew who prays every day.
To accommodate his growing clientele, he employs a native Egyptian as
paralegal and works with a team of Egyptian translators.

Many of the new arrivals, the attorney says, are young professionals
who worked as doctors, pharmacists, businessmen.

"If they have money, they are getting out," Mr. Barnett says.

Mr. Barnett charges between $2,500 and $3,000 to process the basic
asylum claim, If the person is turned down, an appeal may cost an extra
$2,500 to $6,000 - not including the expert witnesses, such as
psychiatrists or Egypt specialists.

Those hurdles don't deter people
like Hany Attia Eskandar. The 33-year old abandoned a solid
income as an insurance broker in Egypt to come to New York with his
pregnant wife and six-year old daughter. Muslim extremists destroyed his church in
his native village of Sol in March. He was so shaken he was afraid to
leave his wife and daughter alone in their Cairo apartment. His
little girl wasn't allowed to leave the house except to go to school.

A few months ago, they made their way to Father Luke's church, where
Mr. Eskandar volunteered as a deacon. For a time, they shared a small
room in Mrs. El Gawly's apartment.

Mr. Eskandar met with Mr. Barnett, and plans to apply for asylum.

He recently moved his family to Mechanicsburg, Pa., to be near friends.
Life is cheaper there, he says, and he was able to find work as a
cashier in a gas station.

On Tuesday, his wife Maryan gave birth to a baby boy in a Catholic
facility, Holy Spirit Hospital. "I am happy to have him, and I am happy
also that he is an American citizen and that he will not suffer from
what we suffered from," says Mr. Eskander.

If granted asylum, Mr. Eskandar hopes for a job in his old field, life
insurance. But months of waiting still lie ahead.

Mr. Andraws, the engineer with multiple low-wage gigs, had been waiting
for word on his case. After an interview with an asylum office, he was
nervous that he failed to adequately convey the threats he'd received
back home.

For two weeks, he wondered what he would do if his asylum request was
denied. Would he return to Egypt and risk being in the Muslim cleric's
web again?

Then late last month, he received an envelope. The message: He could
stay in America pending a background check.

"I am kind of free," he says. "I left
all my fears back in Egypt so I get a new life."

*
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*
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The Telegraph

Church in Nigerian Capital Abuja Hit by Explosion

An explosion has hit a church near the Nigerian capital Abuja on
Christmas morning, an emergency official said, killing at least 20
people.

The area around the scene of the blast degenerated into chaos after the
blast, with angry youths starting fires and threatening to attack a
nearby police station.

Police shot into the air to disperse them and closed a major highway.
Emergency officials called for more ambulances as rescuers sought to
evacuate the dead and wounded.

"We have in these vehicles (ambulances) 15 corpses," a rescue source
told the AFP news agency at the scene on condition of anonymity. He
said the toll was likely to be higher since he believed other rescuers
were also pulling out bodies.

People were inside the church at the time of the blast, but Mr. Shuaib
could not say how many.

A second explosion was subsequently heard in the central Nigerian town
of Jos.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, though Nigeria has been
hit by scores of bomb blasts and shootings attributed to Islamist group
Boko Haram.

The group claimed responsibility for the August suicide bombing of UN
headquarters in Abuja that killed at least 24 people.

Attacks blamed on Boko Haram followed by a heavy military crackdown in
the country's northeast in recent days killed up to 100 people,
authorities and a rights group have said.

Last year, a series of Christmas Eve bombings in the central Nigerian
city of Jos claimed by Boko Haram killed at least 32 people and wounded
at least 74 others.

With those attacks in mind, the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria's capital of
Abuja had issued a warning Friday to citizens to be "particularly
vigilant" around churches, large crowds and areas where foreigners
congregate.

In the last year, the sect has carried out increasingly bloody attacks
in its campaign to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria, a
nation of more than 160 million people with a largely Christian south
and a Muslim north.